Why aren't my campaign messages sending?

Campaigns are a great way to engage your subscribers with both automated content and targeted messages with numerous automations. With multiple options for triggers and automations, you can create customized series that all work without needing daily oversight.

If you're in a situation where campaign messages are not being sent out, there could be a couple of simple reasons for that. In this article, we'll cover the most common reasons why a campaign isn't sending messages.

Campaign Status

The campaign status would refer to the current campaign's sending. A campaign needs to be Active in order for new subscribers or tagged individuals to trigger that campaign.

If the status is showing as Activate, that would mean the campaign hasn't been started. Just click that button to change the status.

A Paused campaign will not let any new subscribers in and any subscribers currently in that series would be paused where they are in the campaign. No messages will be sent until that campaign is set to Active.

Campaign Trigger

The trigger for the campaign would be what actually causes the message to send. There are two kinds of triggers for campaigns and we'll cover both below.

On Subscribe

When using the "On Subscribe" trigger for your campaigns, only newly added subscribers are going to be able to receive that campaign. Anyone currently on the list, as they have already subscribed, would not be triggered to start that campaign.

When specifying a certain trigger for On Subscribe, make sure it matches the method they're being added from. If using 'Source is API', any subscribers added through an integration will trigger the series. If subscribers join your list through an AWeber form or an import, they wouldn't be triggered to start that same series. If you're setting up multiple filters for that campaign trigger, make sure that they don't contradict each other as well.

For example, for subscription source, you wouldn't have a source as webform AND import, as they can only be added to the list through one method at a time.

Remember that if you want any subscriber added to that list to receive that campaign, you don't have to designate a filter.

On Tag

Having the campaign trigger, "Tag Applied", means the campaign will trigger only when a specific tag is applied to a subscriber. If that tag is applied to a subscriber before the campaign is activated, those subscribers will not receive it. The campaign has to be active so it can register the tag being applied to the subscriber.

Newly Added Messages

Once a subscriber completes the last action in a campaign, the system will see them as having finished that campaign. If additional messages are added to the end of that campaign, any subscriber that has previously completed the campaign would not receive those additional emails. This is because they have already completed the series.

For subscribers still going through the campaign, so long as the new message is added before the subscribers reach that message in the series, they will receive that message.

If you have a campaign where you want to add additional messages and want those already in the campaign to receive them, you can add a Wait action after the current last message in that campaign. So long as the new message is added by the time they leave that Wait action, the message will send to them normally.

Wait Action

On the topic of Wait actions, any subscriber that enters a Wait in your Campaign, that subscriber will wait the amount of time set in that action. How this can tie into messages not appearing to send would be if you reduced a Wait period down from where it was originally, as subscribers will Wait the amount of time the action dictates when they first entered the Campaign. So if you change the wait time after the subscribers have joined that Campaign, then they are still going to wait the initial time. However, any new subscribers added to that Campaign would have the new Wait intervals.

As an example, a subscriber enters your campaign where the first action is a Wait of 6 days.

If a day after that subscriber joined, you adjusted that wait time to only 1 day, that subscriber is already in the original Wait, so they will still have to wait that original 6 day interval to get that next action in the campaign. Any new subscribers added after the Wait is updated will have the new Wait time.